


Banished but Not Alone

by FleetofShippyShips



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Banished to the couch, Domestic Bickering, Established Relationship, HP: EWE, M/M, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 11:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13611990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetofShippyShips/pseuds/FleetofShippyShips
Summary: Sometimes Neville can clean up the mud he tracks into the house before he gets caught, and sometimes luck just isn't with him.





	Banished but Not Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the hprarepairnet and slytherdornet tropes challenge on tumblr, for the trope 'exiled to the couch'.

Theo rubbed at his eyes as he picked up his mug and got up from his desk with a groan. Stifling a yawn, he glanced at the clock, and then trudged across the room, fumbling with the door handle a bit, before finally getting it open. Not even four in the afternoon and he felt dead on his feet.

He made it to the kitchen and popped the kettle on, before rummaging around the cupboard for tea. Loose leaf was quite beyond him, and he dug around for a tea bag. Upon finally finding a tin at the back of the cupboard, and feeling cheered by the victory, he turned and noticed it. A trail of dirt and leaves, leading from the back door, and across the kitchen to disappear down the hallway.

Slamming the tea tin down on the bench, he felt his ire rise. “Neville bloody Longbottom!” he yelled.

From the direction of the bathroom, there was a crashing sound and a yelp, and then a head popping into view in the hallway.

“Bugger.”

“Bugger is right,” Theo huffed, moving down the hallway and taking in the smudges of dirt on Neville’s face, and the twigs and leaves in his hair, where he poked his head around the doorway of the bathroom with a sheepish expression. “What did I tell you about tracking mud into my house?”

“It’s my house too,” Neville muttered.

Theo brandished a finger at him. “I swear, you—”

“Clean it up before you see it,” Neville interrupted. “I know! But you’re working on a deadline, I didn’t think you’d—”

“Exactly!” Theo snapped. “Couch.”

Neville’s expression fell. “Again?” he whined. “You know I’ll clean it up!”

Theo shook his head and trudged back to the kitchen as the kettle whistled. “I installed a bloody shower in your garden shed for a reason, Longbottom! A wizard’s home is his haven, and I will not have dirt and mud and leaves tracked through my house every bloody time you pop in for a drink or a snack, or a bloody shower! Clean it up before I notice it’s happened or face the consequences.”

“Did you at least finish your piece for—”

The look Theo turned and gave him made him cut himself off mid-sentence. “Right,” Neville muttered. “I’ll clean it up, I swear! You just focus on your writing. I’ll take care of everything.”

Turning his back on him, Theo went back into the kitchen and readied his tea, his eyes darting to the trail of filth every few moments. An itch demanding attention, but he had to finish his bloody article and couldn’t even remember where he’d left his wand.

Feeling irritated and off-centre, he took his tea and trudged back to his office.

“Sorry, love!” Neville called from the bathroom.

“You will be after a night on the couch,” Theo snapped back, before closing the door on Neville’s reply, and the mess.

Back inside the pristine haven of his office, he felt a little tension melt away, only to build again as he looked at his desk, and the mess of paper that surrounded his typewriter.

Maybe it was getting time to look into those computer things Ron kept babbling to Neville about when he was around.

With a groan, itching with the knowledge there was a mess in the kitchen and hall, Theo sat heavily on his chair, sipping at his tea as he looked over what he’d written so far.

With a grimace, he put his mug down and got back to work.

***

Neville woke when a heavy body flopped down onto him. The room was dark, but there was a faint glimmer of light coming from Theo’s office across the room. Must have left his desk lamp on but turned off the main light again, Neville thought absently, as he remembered he was on the couch in the living room, and not in bed. Theo himself just groaned.

“Done?” Neville asked, shifting to better accommodate his weight.

“And sent off,” Theo confirmed, pressing his face into Neville’s throat and exhaling in a long, heated sigh.

“I’ll make you breakfast tomorrow, how’s that sound?” Neville asked, lifting one hand to slide his fingers through Theo’s hair and then rub at the base of his skull.

“You’re too damn good to me, Nev,” Theo moaned, relaxing against him. Neville wanted to laugh. It was as good an apology as he was going to get for how snappy Theo got near deadlines. But he’d known better than coming inside while he was that dirty anyway. Sometimes he got away with it and cleaned up before Theo saw the mess, other times he earned himself a night on the couch. But at least he never slept there alone. 

“We should go to bed,” he suggested hopefully.

Theo snorted. “Nice try. You’re still banished to the couch, and on the couch you’ll stay.”

Neville rolled his eyes in the dark, but settled back, tucking a hand under the bottom of Theo’s shirt to rest on the warm skin of his lower back, and the other settling on the back of his neck, as he adjusted to the familiar weight of him.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You’re a slob.”

“You’re a snob.”

Theo made an amused sound. “You knew that when you married me. You’re stuck with me now.”

“Oh no, how terrible! How ever will I live with the horror?”

“Shut up and sleep,” Theo muttered, biting Neville’s neck lightly, before kissing the same spot, and relaxing even further, until he was dead weight, but a familiar and comforting weight. One Neville struggled to sleep without these days.

It was a good thing he never had to sleep alone when he was banished to the couch, no matter how angry Theo got with him. 


End file.
